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Event Information:
The
Canada Day Parade in Montreal has
been hosted there every year since
1978, and is locally called Défilé
de la Fête du Canada. Given the
federal nature of the holiday,
celebrating Canada Day can be a
cause of friction in the province of
Quebec, where the holiday is
overshadowed by Quebec's National
Holiday, on June 24. For example,
the federal government funds events
at the Old Port of Montreal, an area
run by a federal Crown corporation,
while the parade is a grassroots
effort that has been met with
pressure to cease, even from federal
officials. The nature of the event
has also been met with criticism
outside of Quebec, such as that
given by Ottawa Citizen columnist
David Warren, who said in 2007: "The
Canada of the government-funded
paper flag-waving and painted faces
the 'new' Canada that is celebrated
each year on what is now called
'Canada Day' has nothing
controversially Canadian about it.
You could wave a different flag, and
choose another face paint, and
nothing would be lost."
Canada
Day also coincides with Quebec's
traditional Moving Day, when many
fixed-lease apartment rental terms
expire. The bill changing the
province's moving day from May 1 to
July 1 was introduced by a
federalist member of the Quebec
National Assembly, Jérôme Choquette,
in order not to affect children
still in school in the month of May.
Quebec is a province in east-central
Canada. It is the only Canadian
province with a predominantly
French-speaking population and the
only one whose sole official
language is French at the provincial
level. Quebec is Canada's largest
province by area and its
second-largest administrative
division; only the territory of
Nunavut is larger. It is bordered to
the west by the province of Ontario,
James Bay and Hudson Bay, to the
north by Hudson Strait and Ungava
Bay, to the east by the Gulf of
Saint Lawrence and the provinces of
Newfoundland and Labrador and New
Brunswick. It is bordered on the
south by the U.S. states of Maine,
New Hampshire, Vermont, and New
York. It also shares maritime
borders with Nunavut, Prince Edward
Island, and Nova Scotia.
Quebec
is Canada's second most populous
province, after Ontario. Most
inhabitants live in urban areas near
the Saint Lawrence River between
Montreal and Quebec City, the
capital. English-speaking
communities and English-language
institutions are concentrated in the
west of the island of Montreal but
are also significantly present in
the Outaouais, Estrie, and Gaspé
regions. The Nord-du-Québec region,
occupying the northern half of the
province, is sparsely populated and
inhabited primarily by Aboriginal
peoples.
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